Pain Au Lait With Espresso Cardamom Chocolate
A decadent and sweet bread perfect for breakfast with coffee or tea. This recipe can take up to two days to complete, so please be aware if you are making it for a special occasion. I shaped my dough into 3 small loaves and snipped the tops with kitchen shears to achieve a spiked effect, after egg washing. It will be tempting to devour these right away, but be warned, the longer you can wait to tear into them, the less gooey and messy the chocolate inside will be. In the recipe i call for semi-sweet chips, but a large bar of good quality chocolate broken into small pieces would be fantastic as well. I started my batch early in the day and finally enjoyed a fragrant, delectable slice, complete with oozing melted chocolate, around 7:30pm, if that helps put the time frame into perspective. Next time, i plan on shaping my dough into smaller balls, to maximize the gorgeous, shiny crust and i will start the recipe the evening before so i can just take the dough out when i get up and shape th
Steps
In a small sauce pan add the milk , crushed cardamom pods , and ground espresso.
Heat on low setting for approximately 30 minutes , to fully infuse the espresso and cardamom in the milk.
While the milk is steeping measure flour into a stand mixer mixing bowl.
Once the milk has finished steeping strain through cheese cloth or a coffee filter in a strainer.
Let milk cool down to warm but not hot.
Add the yeast , sugar , and salt to the warm milk and let it sit for 5-10 minutes or until the yeast begins to activate and become foamy.
Add the milk mixture to the flour and let mix on stand mixer with dough hook , until all the ingredients come together , about 3-5 minutes on med-low speed.
The mixture will be dry and possibly crumbly , do not add more milk.
Now , add the egg and let mix for 5 minutes.
Add a few teaspoons of flour as needed to keep the dough from sticking to the sides of the bowl so badly , it tends to be a sticky mess once the egg goes inches next , add the 1 / 2 .
Ingredients
instant yeast, sugar, sea salt, bread flour, egg, butter, milk, whole cardamom pods, ground espresso, semi-sweet chocolate chips